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The Emfuleni LocaL Municipality residents brave poor service delivery. Picture: Katlego Jiyane/EWN
The Emfuleni LocaL Municipality residents brave poor service delivery. Picture: Katlego Jiyane/EWN
With local government elections fast approaching, residents in parts of Emfuleni are complaining they're navigating badly damaged roads to avoid potholes as part of their daily commute.
Boipatong, Sekati Street, which runs alongside Lebohang Secondary School, has deteriorated to a point where motorists are forced to slow down, swerve and pick their way through craters and broken road surfaces.
This is the reality despite R11 million being spent on rehabilitation and maintenance of the road, which was coughed up by the provincial government interventions.
Meanwhile, the Emfuleni Local Municipality insists that it continues to invest in road infrastructure and is making progress on several projects.
If you are driving through parts of Emfuleni, keeping your eyes on the road is no longer enough.
Another means swerving into the path of oncoming traffic.
On Sekati Street in Boipatong, the road has become a test of patience and, for some motorists, a test of their vehicles.
What should be an ordinary journey has become a slow, careful negotiation between craters, broken surfaces and sections of road that appear barely passable.
And that is what makes these roads so striking.
Because this is not simply about potholes.
It is about what happens when basic infrastructure deteriorates to the point where residents can physically feel the consequences of service-delivery failures beneath their tyres.
The municipality said it continues to invest millions in road infrastructure and that projects are making progress.
The provincial government has also intervened, including through a major rehabilitation programme covering roads across Emfuleni.
Yet the condition of roads like this suggests a disconnect between repeated interventions and what residents actually experience on the ground.
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The Emfuleni LocaL Municipality residents brave poor service delivery. Picture: Katlego Jiyane/EWN
The Emfuleni LocaL Municipality residents brave poor service delivery. Picture: Katlego Jiyane/EWN
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